¡SI TE ATREVES! COMPOSING MUSIC AND BLACK IDENTITY IN PERU, 1958-1974 Andrew A. Reinel A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of BACHELOR OF ARTS WITH HONORS DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN March 30, 2008 Advised by Professors: Jesse Hofnung-Garskof & Paulina Alberto For Mom, Dad, Lucy, Maria, and Dianne (familia). TABLE OF CONTENTS Figures .............................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ iii Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: Nicomedes Santa Cruz .......................................................................... 10 Chapter Two: Victoria Santa Cruz .............................................................................. 23 Chapter Three: Peru Negro .......................................................................................... 33 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 42 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 46 FIGURES Figure 1. “Cumanana” 3rd Ed. (1970)……………………………………………………18 Figure 2. “…Con Victoria Santa Cruz” (1972)………………………………………….26 Figure 3. “Peru Negro” (1974)………………………………………………...................39 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank those who have significantly supported me throughout this process, especially those friends of mine who are currently writing theses as well. Unsurprisingly, they have been the most supportive of all. I would like to thank them for sticking with me through long nights, for sharing meals, for sharing their enthusiasm as well as sharing some time to vent. A special thank you to Gabe Pompilius for this support, and to Alida Perrine, for lending me her laptop for the past month when mine decided to stop functioning. Thank you to David Plona, for digitalizing the LP albums so that the readers can enjoy this wonderful music on the accompanying CD. Thank you to Gustavo Serrano, for finding me sources while he was in Lima, Peru. Finally, I want to thank my advisors for all their words of advice--especially for the candid advice a person normally would not want to hear. iii Introduction Invisible or not: The Black Presence in Peru. In the introductions of books, articles, and essays on Afro-Peruvian culture and history (as well as on the slipcases of Afro-Peruvian records, CDs, and cassettes), it is not uncommon to encounter one of two observations. One comes in the form of percentages or numbers which give readers a rough estimate on how many blacks there are or were in Peru. Many of the present day numbers estimate that Afro-Peruvians could make up anywhere from 6 percent to 10 percent of the national population (Luciano, Rodriguez Pastor, 271). In David Byrne’s CD “The Soul of Black Peru”, one artist notes how the country’s “melting pot” or high rate of ethnic mixture, makes it difficult to define who is “Black” in Peru, but that it can nonetheless be said that people of African descent in Peru are a small minority. The other “hook” that authors use when introducing Afro-Peruvian history and culture, is the anecdote of how the first Blacks arrived in Peru: not just in slave ships, but actually with the first Spanish expedition to the land of the Incas, as slaves who assisted the Conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro (Romero, 307). Some scholars even speculate that the first on this expedition to touch Peruvian soil was a Black man (Feldman, 2). Both hooks are popular, because outside of Peru it is not common knowledge that people of African descent exist in that country. Therefore, what would usually come off as dry observations (generic questions on when and how Africans came to x New World colony, and how large the group became) in Peru’s case, are exotic facts or anecdotes. Even if the answer to the first question is that Afro-descendants are but a small minority in Peru, the very assertion of 4 their existence to many comes as a shock, a feeling David Byrne playfully mocks on the back of his CD: “Black Peruvians? Yes, Peru was involved in the slave trade too—and this wonderful, funky music is part of that legacy.” In fact, so important was the Atlantic slave trade to colonial Peru, that according to communications scholar Heidi Feldman, (author of “Black Rhythms of Peru: Reviving African Musical Heritage in the Black Pacific) blacks outnumbered whites in Peru by the year 1650, a little over 120 years after the Spanish first set foot there (3). By the mid-eighteenth century, blacks still consisted of nearly half the population of the Viceroyalty’s capital, Lima (Estenssoro, 161). Nonetheless, Peru did not import anywhere near as many African slaves as did other Spanish and Portuguese colonies, and as historians José Luciano and Humberto Rodriguez Pastor note, slavery in Peru had a distinct domestic character: “Early in the viceroyalty almost the entire Afro-Peruvian population, some 93 per cent, was located on the coast, and close to 70 percent of this population lived in Lima, the capital, and other urban areas” (272). Because the Afro-Peruvian population was highly concentrated in urban areas, they were in much closer and more frequent contact with Whites. Their services in the cities, particularly as domestic servants, facilitated their assimilation into White Peruvian coastal society (Feldman, 2). Of course in turn, coastal Peruvian culture was significantly influenced by the customs of blacks. However, the Eurocentric and racist mentality of dominant white society, in conjunction with the peculiarity of the caste system typical throughout Spain’s New World possessions (where not just skin color, but also one’s customs could often determine one’s perceived racial identity) encouraged black Peruvians to abandon many of their traditions, hoping that by seeming less “African”, they might be treated less like Africans. Furthermore, Luciano and Rodriguez Pastor tell us that 5 “…Africans who came to Peru were already somewhat used to European culture through their previous work or travels in other parts of the Americas. By the time they arrived in the colony they had largely lost touch with specific African ethnic identities and customs, and they more easily integrated into their new culture” (274). Therefore, by the twentieth century, Black culture in Peru seemed to have disappeared, not simply because throughout the 19th century the number of Black Peruvians had significantly dwindled (due to military service, high mortality rates, intermarriage, and an end to the import of African slaves) but also because most of their customs and practices did not show a great deal of distinct traits. Rather, what Black Peruvians came to practice were criollo, or “creole” customs which urban Peruvians of several other races (whites, mestizos, and some Asians) practiced as well, and to which Africans contributed with their culture. The ethnomusicologist William Tompkins, who wrote a dissertation entitled “The Musical Traditions of the Blacks of Coastal Peru” (1982), explains the meanings behind the word criollo quite concisely: The word “criollo” has had many meanings, and its use is not limited to Peru but is found throughout the Americas. Originally, it referred to the children of the black slaves who were born in the New World. Later, the term applied to anyone born in the colonies. More recently, a “criollo” has come to mean anyone who feels and practices cultural nationalism, or “criollismo.” Sebastian Salazar has defined it well: a criollo, he says, is a “native of Lima, or by extension, whatever part of the coast, who lives, thinks, and acts according to a given group of national traditions and customs, but not including those traditions that are indigenous” (91-92). As previously mentioned, this coastal culture was something which was shaped by Black Peruvians as much as it was by White Peruvians, since after all these were the major groups which lived together in Peru’s coastal urban centers. As a whole, however, criollo culture was a culture that was taken for granted as a coastal and national in nature, and by no means perceived as “Afro-Peruvian” culture. Particularly from the late 19th century through the early decades of the 20th century, at a time when political leaders all throughout Latin America were seeking to “whiten” their respective nations and populations, the non-white elements of their national cultures would not have been emphasized or celebrated. Because a person of 6 African descent might be more socially mobile if he or she acted criollo as opposed to distinctly Afro-Peruvian (and had better chances of upward mobility if he or she had lighter skin), “many Black Peruvians demonstrated little sense of belonging to an African diaspora” (Feldman, 3). In the mid-1990s, Peruvian scholar Raul Romero even asserted that “In fact, blacks in Peru do not even constitute an ethnic group as it has been conceptually defined...”1 Luciano and Rodriguez Pastor agree with this thought, noting that “Despite belonging to a racial group whose contribution to the nation and its culture has been highly significant…[Afro-Peruvians] tend collectively and individually to possess little sense of ethnic identity” (271). Nonetheless,